The seventh fight of the day

His name happened to be Joe Murray, and he happened to be representing Great Britain. But none of that mattered much. No one had come to the Worker’s Gymnasium that day to see Joe Murray.

The man they were waiting for came out moments later, and a bomb went off.

ZHONG GUO, JAIYO! ZHONG GUO, JAIYO!

The Chinese fighter was Yu Gu, a 54 kg bantam weight. If you passed him on the sidewalk, you wouldn’t know it. But on this day, as he emerged from the tunnel and walked to the ring, he was The Baddest Man on the Planet.

He waved to the crowd.

ZHONG GUO, JAIYO! ZHONG GUO, JAIYO!

He threw a punch or two into the air, and did a quick shuffle-step.

ZHONG GUO, JAIYO! ZHONG GUO, JAIYO!

It was the seventh fight of the day. Through the first six, you could hear the girl six rows back wondering aloud about how the scoring works.

The opponent looked like he’d already lost. Four rounds later, he had.

17-7, and it wasn’t that close.

The referee raised the Chinese fighter’s hand.

ZHONG GUO, JAIYO! ZHONG GUO, JAIYO!

It was only the preliminary round, the one that narrowed the field from 32 to 16. There were a half-dozen events going on that were more important. But the few thousand Chinese who were fortunate enough to be in the gym that afternoon, including the large groups of schoolchildren who had come with their teachers, didn’t have those tickets.

Most of them will not get another opportunity to watch one of their countrymen compete in these Olympics. So they made this one count.

ZHONG GUO, JAIYO! ZHONG GUO, JAIYO!

Yu Gu bowed to each corner of the gymnasium before exiting the ring. The seventh fight of the day was over.

In the eighth fight, Gojan Veaceslav of Moldova won a narrow victory over Khatsyhau Khavazhy of Belarus. They fought in silence.